Rutledge v. Bristol
Opinion of the Court
This is a controversy between a state court receiver and a trustee in bankruptcy over the right to take possession of and administer certain assets of the Investment Securities Company, bankrupt. The bankruptcy court decided in favor of the trustee, ordered the First National Bank in Dallas to turn over to him assets which it held under a deed of trust from the Investment Company, and enjoined the receiver appointed by the state court from further attempting to secure possession of such assets. From this order the receiver appeals.
The Investment Company prior to being adjudged a bankrupt on April 16, 1930, was engaged in the mortgage loan business. To secure funds it issued and sold several series of bonds aggregating over $13,000,000. Series A bonds amounted to upwards of a million dollars; they were secured by notes and mortgages held by the bank as trustee under a deed- of trust which provided that
The object of the bill in the state court was to wind up the affairs of an insolvent corporation. It invoked an insolvency proceeding which would be superseded by bankruptcy. In re Watts, 190 U. S. 1, 23 S. Ct. 718, 47 L. Ed. 933; Straton v. New, 283 U. S. 318, 51 S. Ct. 465, 75 L. Ed. 1060; Hooks v. Aldridge (C. C. A.) 145 F. 865. The bill did not seek the foreclosure of a lien held by the plaintiff, and ask for the appointment of a receiver to preserve the property in aid of the suit. It prayed for judgment on plaintiff’s bond, it is true, but it did not seek foreclosure by the plaintiff in his own right. According to the terms of the trust deed plaintiff had the right to sue for judgment, but he did not have the right to foreclose. The foreclosure prayed for could only be had by the receiver, who it was intended should supplant the trustee bank. Plaintiff did not ask that the money realized on foreclosure be paid to him, but only that his bond be paid ratably with other bonds out of the proceeds of the foreclosure suit. The bank as trustee had the lien, and under the averments of the bill it only had the right to foreclose. Plaintiff was not entitled to a legal lien before he secured judgment on his bond. He had no equitable lien upon assets in the hands of the bank; under the trust deed he had only a right in equity to have a lien upon such assets established in his favor. Nor does the decree of the state court undertake to establish a lien in plaintiff’s favor; it merely purports to authorize the receiver to supplant the trustee bank in the assertion of the common rights in equity of all holders of series A bonds. The state court at the time the trustee in bankruptcy was appointed had not assumed jurisdiction over any assets of the bankrupt. This interlocutory decree went no further than to authorize the receiver to demand of the bank possession of assets. Before the receiver took any step to get possession of the res, bankruptcy intervened and superseded any right he otherwise might have had. The receiver not being in possession of the res cannot complain of the summary order restraining him from interfering with the trustee .in bankruptcy.
An appeal was taken from an order of the bankruptcy court referring an application to set aside an injunction issued by the referee back to the referee for his consideration; but that order of the district judge has since been set aside and need not now be considered.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I disagree to the propositions that the state court bill was only one to wind up the affairs of an insolvent-corporation and was therefore superseded by the bankruptcy; that, because the suitor had no right himself to foreclose, the state court at the time of bankruptcy had not assumed jurisdiction over the property in dispute; and that the state court receiver, not having had actual possession, cannot complain of the summary order against him. The bill was twofold. In one aspect the complainant as a stockholder both common.and preferred sought dissolution of his insolvent corporation and liquidation of all its affairs. The bill in this aspect may be considered one for a relief over which a court of bankruptcy has paramount and exclusive jurisdiction. The state court itself refused to entertain the bill for this purpose and declined to appoint a general receiver for the corporation. This aspect of the bill becomes of no importance. In its other aspect the complainant sues as a secured creditor, the owner of one of the defaulted series A bonds; he exhibits the instrument conveying to the bank as trustee the pledged notes with their landed security which provides: “Said trustee hereby agrees to hold said cash and notes and deeds of trust so deposited in trust to secure the payment of all bonds, principal and interest, issued or to be issued and certified hereunder, without preference of one bond over another, until all of said bonds are fully paid or otherwise satisfied”; and he sets up that the security is insufficient, the pledged notes are past due and require foreclosure, that land must be bought in and rented out to avoid sacrifice, that the trustee’s powers are insufficient to enable it to deal with the situation, and that a receiver is indispensable to preserve, realize on, and distribute the security to the bondholders of whom he is one. By distinct prayers this relief is asked for the benefit of aill bondholders, and that-appropriate notice be given them all; and by another prayer he asks a judgment on his own bond “with foreclosure of the lien which in equity exists in his behalf against the funds and properties constituting such trust,” with an alternative relief of sharing with all others in the distribution thereof. Other bondholders with Bonds aggregating $14,300 were allowed to intervene as complainants and to adopt his allegations as to the trust and join in the prayers for a receiver for it and for ratable distribution. After a hearing on the bill and the interventions and the answer of the bank, the court, vfhile refusing a general receiver, found a necessity for a receiver of the trust and appointed one, directing him to take immediate possession of the trust assets from the bank and to reduce them to cash under the orders of the court for ratable distribution to the bondholders. The bank took an appeal, which it lost on the merits before the Court of Civil Appeals, First National Bank of Dallas v. Brown, 34 S.W.(2d) 412, 413, and the Supreme Court held itself without jurisdiction. 53 S.W.(2d) 604. The appointment therefore stood. The insolvent company, pending the appeal, took voluntary bankruptcy.
The state court did not lose its jurisdiction nor its receiver his rights by the appeal, though long delay was caused. Palmer v. Texas, 212 U. S. 119, 29 S. Ct. 230, 53 L. Ed. 435. The jurisdiction assumed by the state court was to protect and administer specific property in the actual possession of the bank as a trustee for the securing of debts. It differed in no particular from the foreclosure of a mortgage at the instance of a secured creditor where the mortgage is made to a trustee. The state court, affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, held that the provision of the trust that the security should be enforced only by and through the trustee was ineffective and void as ousting the jurisdiction of the courts; but whether so or not it could not hinder a beneficiary of the trust from complaining in equity of the trustee, making the debtor and all other beneficiaries parties, in order to seek a preservation of his security and an application of it to its trust purposes. It seems to me wholly immaterial to the court’s jurisdiction in equity over the trust that the beneficiaries invoking it were without remedy by direct sale or other action in their own names. At least the validity and application .of the stipulation against independent action by bondholders eould be submitted to the court for its decision. In fact the trustee bank in its answer set forth that it had declared all the bonds due and was proceeding itself to realize on the security, thus presenting only the question whether it should be superseded by a receiver. Certain it is that a court of equity had as much power to deal with the trust as a court of bankruptcy had.
Undoubtedly a court of bankruptcy has
The property here involved was not at the filing of the petition in bankruptcy in the possession of the bankrupt or any one for him, but was in the adverse possession of the bank and held for the bondholders. Whether the order appealed from be regarded as made by the referee or by the judge neither of them can rightly by summary proceedings hold off the state receiver who has had constructive possession since the date of his appointment while compelling the hank to deliver possession to the trustee in bankruptcy. The receiver justly complains. A hundred dollar bond seems a small pivot on which to hang a million dollar receivership, but it is a sufficient germ of jurisdiction and was reenforced by $14,300 before the state court acted. If the bill is wrong in purpose or defective in matter, the trustee in bankruptcy ought to become a party to it and press his objection in the state court. Tho district judge was right in his first opinion which upheld the prior state court jurisdiction, and was wrong in withdrawing and reversing it.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- RUTLEDGE v. BRISTOL (two cases) RUTLEDGE v. SAME
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